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Thursday, October 20, 2011

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

We've had two amazing sessions with with author Matt de la Pena today. We just finished lunch....Matt predicts that our own Carlos C. will be president some day. CC made a great observation about We Were Here. I am totally cool with CC being our nation's leader in a few years :)

Here's Matt eating lunch and Juan being Juan:

We've had great conversations about author's craft... about where authors get (steal!) ideas for characters, about the musicality of language, and about the importance of revision (104 times?!).

Thursday, October 6, 2011

﻿﻿ This makes the second year in a row that small but mighty Melissa High School has hosted a nationally known author. Woot!

Matt de la Pena is the author of several highly-regarded young adult novels, including Ball Don’t Lie, Mexican White Boy, and We Were Here. These are what I call “street stories”, stories of young people growing up in dire circumstances, facing big challenges. They are gritty and realistic. Matt went to college on a basketball scholarship and many of his stories involve sports. He is also a teacher of creative writing at NYU.

All three sessions will be in the library. There will be no study hall that day.

Session One (All students who have English 1st or 2nd period)

9:05 to 10:05All students will report to first period for attendance, then come to the library.When students exit the library, they will be handed a pass to second periodSession Two (All students who have English 3rd or 4th period)10:50 to 11:50All students will report to third period for attendance, then come to the library.
When students exit the library, they will be handed a pass to 4th period

Session Three (All students who have English 6th, 7th, or 8th period)1:45 to 2:45 All students will report to 6th period for attendance, then come to the library.When students exit the library, they will be handed a pass to 7th period.